This story is about the life of the Pavement Pounder '57 Chevy, a project car that shares a similar story to David Freiburger's Super Bee that we've reported on over the last three issues. Both were HOT ROD project cars, both were built in the mid-'90s, both were radical, and both, sadly, suffered the ignobility of storage and lost attention for more than a decade, which should show you that we're just like you. We know what it's like when other priorities get ahead of your pride and joy. When paint for the house is more important than paint for your car. When time for your career and family displaces time for your hot rod projects. But as with the Super Bee, we were persuaded to bring the '57 back to life after all those years of neglect.

2/24Freed from a decade of sitting idle in a barn, the Pavement Pounder '57 was at home once again on Power Tour(r). Getting the car back on the road was no small challenge, but the experience of thundering down the highway again was worth all the sleepless nights.

The Good Times
The car took the better part of three years to build in the mid-'90s and spanned two years in this magazine. The plans for the '57 were created when Fastest Street Car racing was maturing. We wanted to build a car that demonstrated what we thought the Super Street class should be-small tire, all-steel cars with full interiors. The goal was to run 9s and be streetable enough to drive on Power Tour(r).

The Pavement Pounder is a bit of a history book now, but we drew on some of the best talent in the day to meet these marks. A 557ci big-block was built by Mike Blackstone with a hogged-out set of Brodix BB-4 heads and a huge solid roller cam that would force most lifters into early retirement. The results were impressive for that era: 893 hp and 740 lb-ft on pump gas. We backed that up with an ATI TH400, a 4,500-stall converter, and a Currie 9-inch. A Gear Vendors Under/Overdrive kept the rpm low on the highway, and we could use it between Second and Third gears on the dragstrip to turn our TH400 into a four-speed auto. Danny Scott built a slick 'cage that most people don't even notice until they stick their head in the car. He also installed and set up our S&W four-link rear suspension.

3/24Like too many cars, the Pavement Pounder was pushed off to the side after its heyday. Life raced past while it sat still.

We drove from Los Angeles to Detroit on the '98 Power Tour(r), although we suffered a dead roller lifter. We hit our e.t. goal with 9.70s at 137 mph. We left the car in Detroit and used it as our driver when we'd visit the Motor City. Life was good.

The Decline
Then it happened. The engine developed a ticking sound. Before there was time to diagnose it, the author and owner of the car changed careers and moved across the country with a growing family. The Pavement Pounder and several other projects were slid silently into a barn and the door was locked. A year went by. Then two. Then ten.

4/24The first order of business was to clean it out and take inventory of needed repairs. The interior and trunk stank. After evicting the mice and removing their poop, we found some cool fliers from the '98 Power Tour(r), as well as an old racing suit and a pair of HOT ROD magazine tennis shoes.

The Challenge
In January, Editor Rob Kinnan challenged the author to get the car out of storage and do Power Tour(r) with it. By mid-March, we were committed to getting the car ready for the trip, but there was a lot to attend to. Not only did we have the gremlins that anyone faces when a car sits for a decade, but most of the driveline was made up of race car components that took years to figure out how to make play nicely together. We couldn't change any major components of the car without redoing just about everything. And we didn't even know what needed fixing yet.

A lot of people suggested that we just throw a crate 502 and a 3-inch exhaust in the car and drive it, but it was built from day one to be a badass, in-your-face street car. We've used plenty of crate motors, and we love them. But not for this car.

The Road to Redemption
Ten weeks before the '10 Power Tour(r) kickoff party, we freed the car from the corner of the shop and took inventory. Our naive outlook was that we'd find a broken valvespring, fix a fuel tank leak, change some fluids, put new tires on the car, and hit the road. Wrong! A peek under the valve covers did not discover a broken valvespring. Digging further reminded us that this car had hundreds of precision parts, all custom-machined to work perfectly together. Exactly what made the Pavement Pounder so cool and unique is what now made it so daunting to rebuild in a short time. Mild panic ensued and we called engine builder Kurt Urban to see if he'd help us with the engine. After sitting unloved for a decade, the Pavement Pounder was disassembled in a weekend and parts were sent in every direction to prep it for its next cross-country drive.

8/24We had Dart coat the piston skirts with its Teflon coating. The primary benefit of this is reduced friction, but we were also trying to take up a couple of thousandths of piston-to-wall clearance. Dart also applied a high-temperature heat barrier coating to the top that reflects heat back into the combustion chamber. This will come in extremely handy if we put the car back on the juice.

Carnage
The mystery valvetrain noise turned out to be a broken tip on one of the titanium valves, and several others looked like they were on the way to destruction, too. We also found heavy scoring in the pin area of five of the pistons, probably due to the vacuum pump we ran on the engine (it was worth 22 hp but has a tendency to suck oil off the cylinder walls). The rest of the engine looked pretty good, but it would welcome a fresh set of rings and bearings.

While The Engine Was Out
The only known problem with the rest of the car was a leaky fuel tank (that and a big dent when the car fell off the floor jack while we were jacking it up to inspect it). Charlie Thurman at Superior Radiator built the original tank, and he was happy to knock out a replacement, as well as a new radiator, when we found ours full of corrosion from sitting so long without an anode. We checked the brakes and filled the master cylinder, put new System 1 fuel filters throughout the fuel system, replaced the 15-year-old Optima YellowTop battery, replaced the fluid in the TH400, and mounted a new set of BFGoodrich Radial T/A tires on the original Halibrand wheels. We pondered whether we should heed conventional wisdom, which says to replace any braided-steel fuel line that's more than about seven years old. Checking the calendar and our Visa bill, we decided to ignore it and see what happened. More on that later.

9/24Urban measured and assembled the short-block for us. He almost exclusively builds high-horsepower LS engines these days, so putting together this old-school big-block was a trip down memory lane.

Engine Rebuild
We called on Comp Cams to deliver a valvetrain that was more durable on the street but not weak on the top end. Our request was the biggest solid roller cam the company had that wouldn't kill a set of lifters in 3,000 street miles, and Comp delivered (see the captions for details). Urban also recommended some other small changes and buttoned up the bottom end while we made final repairs on the car.

The Final Yard
In 1998, the Pounder was started for the first time at 5:30 a.m. the day we left for Power Tour(r). We didn't do much better this time around. The rebuilt engine was finally in the car and ready to fire at 10 p.m. the day we wanted to leave for the Painless Kickoff Party. We primed the electric fuel pump, and gasoline seeped from the carburetor feed lines. Remember those braided-steel lines we mentioned earlier? The rubber hose inside the braided-steel had decayed. We scrambled around the shop and dug up some equally old but unused braided-steel line to replace those short leads and just hoped the primary lines from the tank up to the regulators would make the trip. The seals in the Dominator carb were also shot from sitting so long, but we had a spare Dominator in the trunk that we had built for the '98 Power Tour(r), so we bolted it on, static-set the timing, and hit the ignition key. The 557 roared to life like it had been waiting for permission. At 12:30 a.m., we were ready to hit the road.

10/24After seeing the debris that the System 1 oil filter trapped from this engine from the first Power Tour(r) and a killed lifter, we were believers. We just put in a new element. Make sure you order new O-rings because they don't come with the element.

The Road to Power Tour(r)
We set out for the journey to Newton, Iowa, on the day of the Kickoff Party. We stopped just a few miles from the house to fill up the gas tank. Fuel pouring out of the tank when it was nearly full reminded us that we didn't hook up a vent tube. No biggie. We flipped the switch to get back on the road only to hear that slow, drained-battery crank. We bought a set of jumper cables at the gas station and bummed a jump from another customer. On the way, we performed a roadside exhaust repair, changed all the fluids one more time, and then stopped at Midwest Images in West Baden, Illinois, to fix the exhaust properly and install the fuel tank vent tube as well as a fire extinguisher because we still had a 15-year-old fuel line on the car-and we were ready to really join the Power Tour(r).

Cruisin' with the Tour
On the drive from Springfield, Illinois, to DuQuoin, we finally hooked up with the '10 Power Tour(r). We went from being the lone hot rod on the highway to being simply the loudest among a sea of beautiful street rods and muscle cars. It was like we had arrived home. We burbled along the traffic-stricken surface streets and cleaned out the carb's secondary circuits on the highway. That is what the Power Tour(r) is all about!

The next several days were a lather, rinse, repeat cycle of thundering down the highway to get to the next location, debating whether to wipe the bugs off the hood, and mingling with thousands of like-minded car nuts. We didn't run into anymore significant mechanical problems with the car other than a bout with watered-down gas. We also had fun with the Alabama heat, but the Pavement Pounder kept its cool and the highest the temperature gauge read was 190 degrees while sitting in traffic on one of the hottest days.

What's Next?
While the car did return to its storage location after Power Tour(r), the barn is more of a workshop than a storage facility now. The day after we got back from the trip, the primary fuel line gave up and puked fuel all over the ground. So we've got a minor repair to do. If you live in Michigan, you can see the Pavement Pounder at cruise nights and at the Woodward Dream Cruise. You may even see it pounding down the quarter-mile again at Milan Dragway.

Random Numbers and Interesting Stats
Now that the trip is in the rearview mirror, we can safely reflect on the adventure of driving the Pavement Pounder on the '10 Power Tour(r). These are some of the figures we found interesting as we tallied up the week-long adventure: 2,611 miles (from home to Tour, Tour, and back home)

23/24

• 10 states
• 258 gallons of 93-octane fuel
• 9 miles per gallon
• 1 gallon of water in the gas tank
• 15 quarts of oil (break-in oil, one oil change, plus an extra quart for good measure)
• 3 inches of rainfall
• 480 ounces of Coca-Cola
• 4 gallons of sweetened iced tea
• Dozens of old friends seen
• Hundreds of new friends made
• One exhaust muffler dragging down I-80
• One taillight disintegrated from being soaked in gas too many times (see below)
• 0 traffic violations

How to Pack a Trunk for Power Tour(r)
Most cars on Power Tour(r) are self-sufficient. You have to pack everything you'll need for the car and its passengers. We probably had a bit more equipment than most, since most of the Pavement Pounder uses specialized parts and tools. A compact tool kit with as many handtools as possible is a good place to start. We used a 227-piece Kobalt tool set that had just about every socket and wrench we'd need. We also packed our electrical tackle kit (blue Rubbermaid case) with tools and supplies to make nearly any electrical repairs. We purchased a rechargeable LED work light that also doubled as a lightsaber when fatigue gave way to silliness. There's the required car cleaning supplies: a California Car Duster, a bottle of Mother's quick detailer, Rain-X, and a bunch of towels. We packed enough racing oil for an oil change and quite a few extra quarts of race fluids, since they would be hard to find along the route if we needed them. This left just enough room for our camera bag and two duffel bags of clothes. The key is to keep things organized and contained so a roadside repair or the daily hotel migration doesn't require hours of sifting through the trunk.